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Household Chores, Whose Chores
By peace | August 1, 2007
I am very sick. Sick of the fact that sometimes women are just so unfairly treated. Just a few days ago, I had this feeling that comes to me when I was walking at the void deck at my flat. Women give birth to children. Some women died as a result of giving birth. Giving birth is painful and we need to be hospitalized. After giving birth, it takes time for us to be revitalized again and to recuperate from our wounds. What is the job of the men, the so called ‘father’ of the child, the ‘husband’ of the wife?
‘Helping’ out may be just a taste of the fun and having to have some experience of it. In long term, such as waking up to feed babies, bathing babies, feeding babies, and ultimately to doing more household chores, that would be chopping off their legs! Many men are like that. Lazy! Leave all the chores to the wife.
Not all men are like that. I have seen good men. Men that helps the wife, make tea for the wife and do housework too. My second brother helps to do housework. He is a production manager but he helps to do housework. Now that he has a maid at home, he also helps to supervise the maid and help out in everything at home, there is nothing like your job or my job. The wife can work in peace, the children are taken care of and the house is being looked after. This is the kind of man that should be needed in a ‘normal’ family.
Note that I never even mention about money. What is money? Even if you are loaded and very rich, but you treat your wife like a maid and have no respect, who cares how much money you have and how rich you are! But if these people are really rich, then a lot of problems can be solved as well. They can hire maid to help the wife!
This is a debate at Helium. I think most guys would not agree to this question. But I definitely agree to it.
Is sharing housework between husbands and wives the key to successful marriages?
Definitely. Though it is not the main gist of making a marriage work, but it is part of the elements that can help a marriage to work.
Before marriage, the couple live separately. They have their mothers, or their fathers at home to do all the household job. They as children may not have to handle any of their parents’ household matters. To these couples, their love life had been watching movies, shopping and dinning and even vacations. It is only after the couples are married that they had to manage their own home, and their own family once the kids come.
As first time married couples, nothing had been experienced, nothing had been learned. Who knows how it is like to live with your husband or your wife for the first time? Most people would not have laid down ‘rules’ or did a duty roster like what we did in schools. It is definitely a ‘common sense’ thing when it comes to such simple things like doing housework. However, it is a fact that such ‘common sense’ and such simple things are the most often neglected things that are overlooked by men, those husbands around.
When there is no children, housework is still manageable, even though it is rather unfair for the wife who always have to do the additional job — even though the wife is working as well. However, for a wife who is not working, doing the housework will of course be without saying her job. But consider a working wife, she works the same hours as the husband. Sometimes she works even longer than the husband and get lesser pay than the husband (since women are mostly paid lesser than men). In addition, women have the monthly menstrual cycle, which makes them tired and need more rest after a day of work. However, given the kind of husband who do not share any housework from the day they married, what kind of family bliss is there? This is the kind of understanding which men do not even give to his women! Women don’t feel love and being cared for! While husband can watch TV, eat crackers and talk over the phone with his friends, the wife who come back from work, have to do housework first — laundry, mop the floor, clear the dining table, and so on. Even after dining, the wife have to clear the dining table. The husband just walks away! When told, the husband is not happy, the ‘traditional’ old-thinking of the husband says that men should not do housework. That is not a man should do! What kind of logic is that? Then women should stay at home and the men should go out to work to support the wife!
This is the start of a estrange relationship. To avoid more quarrel and disagreements, most couples choose to evade from the problems. However, the grudge and resentment is there. The problem is never settled.
When children comes, the case is worsen. The wife had to do housework, look after children, do the cooking, discipline the children, earn money, be the children’s mentor and tutor; the wife also have to be a ’slave’ to the ‘traditional’ inconsiderate husband who think that everything is the woman’s job! What kind of happiness and relaxation can the wife enjoy? And when being discussed the same issue and the problem of raising the children, the husband choose to evade the problems. Many men run away from problems. They choose to ‘enjoy life’ rather than face life. They fool around to immerse their sorrows. Women settle problems that their husband created and they have to suffer heart pain and sorrows for the kind of love that they had given out but is unreciprocated.
On the other hand, if the husbands and wives are understanding, both have their share of housework, by this I mean sharing of household tasks — eg. tutoring the kids, discipline the kids, cooking, mopping the floor, ironing clothes and so on. Each of them have a specific roles, have a fair share, then the women would not be stressed out. By having a fair share of housework, when both the husband and wife do housework together, it will reinforce their relationship too. With children, it is a family affair altogether, and it makes a meaningful family activity even! However, all these is made possible with a hand that is willing to clap.
Afterall doing housework is not tough afterall, but it takes time. Every little thing takes time. When the wife is busy doing all the tasks at home, busy with housework and busy with children, the husband is free to do what he wants. Sometimes when the wife is busy until she has not even taken her own lunch, the husband even ask for a cup of coffee. This is treating the wife as a ‘maid’! This definitely will not make the woman happy.
To make the marriage works, it takes the couples, the husband and wife to learn to give and take. But there is a limit to giving and taking. It is paying respect and treating people with empathy. Many married couples are like that around me. Sharing housework definitely will help in the marriage.
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